Posted
by
samzenpuson Thursday June 20, 2013 @05:31AM
from the hanging-out-the-window-with-a-bottle-full-of-rain dept.

sciencehabit writes "The next time you hear extended applause for a performance you didn't think was that great, don't feel like a snob. A new study reveals that audience response has more to do with the people in the seats than those up on stage. Applause, it turns out, is a bit like peer pressure. In a study of college students, individuals were more likely to start clapping if a larger percentage of the audience had already started. If 50% of the audience was clapping, for example, individuals were 10 times more likely to start clapping than if 5% of the audience was clapping. People stop clapping for the same reason. Even more surprising, the applause for a bad presentation could be just as long as applause for a good one. Random interactions in the audience can result in very different lengths of applause regardless of the quality of the talk."

I go to one of the old "mainline" churches. It is a cultural feature there that you are not supposed to applaud performances, as they are (supposedly) done for the glory of God, not self aggrandizement.

However, it occasionally still happens, which makes it a really interesting study. Our choir director was asked about it, and he said it was his observation that it tended to happen much more often when a peice ends suddenly after a very loud part. His theory was that sudden silence feels out of place, so the parishoners feel the need to fill it with something. After a couple more years of watching it myself, I believe he may be onto something.

So I would suspect the frequency and volume of applause probably has a lot more to do with how the preceeding piece ended than with they quality of the performance. As a performer, if you want applause, just make sure your final note/line/whatever is as loud as possible!